Royal birth unites people like nothing else

Headlines and the social media exploded when Kate Middleton, Prince William’s wife, went to the hospital in labor.

Then the media went overboard when news surfaced Monday that the royal baby had been born. It wasn’t until a while afterward that the traditional and social media went into orbit over the baby being a boy and a new heir to the throne.

Now the buzz is over what the boy’s name will be. The uncommon interest in this baby’s birth is that he connects people of the world unlike any other person or event could do today. Though small, he give people a shared interest.

The roots of the baby’s family tree burrow back to the days of the British Empire when so many lands and people of the world had English as a common language, governance and bond. The newness of a newborn recreates that long past era for people without the brutality of imperialism, wars, domination and enslavement.

But the new prince also gives people a sense of hope. It is a smiley, loveable, baby-faced diversion from a world dominated by protests from the Florida acquittal of George Zimmerman this month in the slaying of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

The birth gets people away from thinking about problematic race relations and disparities in the United States, the civil war in Syria, the 12-year-old war in Afghanistan, terrorist attacks, global warming, Nelson Mandela’s poor health, violently destructive weather from global warming and the faltering economy — especially the terrible recession in Europe.

If the Royals in Great Britain can have a baby and be happy about it, then the world must be OK for common, everyday folks.